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Delayed
When Toban came to find me in the cancer center waiting room, we both knew that was probably one of the most important days of our lives. So he immediately started to laugh when he got close enough to realize what I was doing in the meantime. I was on the phone with CNN explaining…
A Season of Stubborn Hope
We feel our smallness when we consider the universe, unutterably vast, dark, and scattered. Whole swaths of space are empty while elsewhere galaxies drift through the void for eons of time before colliding with each other. Some stars go nova and incinerate the planets orbiting them, expending themselves in an explosion so powerful that our…
The Two Month Challenge
Every two months I walk up to the edge of the cliff. Will I live another two months of uninterrupted life? Meandering walks with Zach. A deep pour of wine on a patio somewhere. Everything begins to feel like it is made of glass. It started when I joined the clinical trial at Emory, and…
Rejoicing in the Midst of Sorrow
If you attend a church that observes the liturgical calendar, this weekend you may have noticed the sanctuary decorated with flowers, clergy clad in pink vestments, and the organist may have been allowed her chance at that instrumental solo she has been longing to launch into. But why? Aren’t we observing Lent—a season for the…
The Cost of Brave Love
Toban says the day he knew I really loved him was the day I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I had just been told my life was over, and he said he felt something Hallmark should probably trademark: “You looked at me with such love that I knew I was a witness to what…
Your Pain is Also Mine
I recently had a dream that I almost drowned in the ocean shallows. I was floating when a massive whirlpool formed beneath me. I tried to get my bearings but I couldn’t swim against the current, pulling me down, down, down. I started to panic when I heard a splash behind me and felt a…
